Cal State San Marcos launches palliative care program

Among the crowd on hand was Suzi K. Johnson, vice president of Sharp Hospice Care. Johnson said the institute was an “awesome” idea and badly needed.

“We need to train and educate the up and coming healthcare providers on the role palliative care has in the delivery of health care,” she said. “I’m here to support that.”

Start-up funding for the institute has come from two three-year grants — $750,000 from the California HealthCare Foundation and $450,000 from the Archstone Foundation — and a matching $1.2 million from San Diego philanthropist Darlene Shiley.

Shiley’s gift came as a surprise Thursday.

In an off-the-cuff speech that had both Shiley and the audience laughing and weeping, she said she had previously promised Haynes a $100,000 gift for the institute. But in thinking it over Wednesday night and recalling how important palliative care had been in the months before her husband, Donald, died two years ago, Shiley said she decided “the original number I had given Karen really didn’t have enough zeros.”